Mad Love
by ginginlee
Summary: A nomad on the run. A girl trapped in her own mind. Sharp, venom-soaked teeth. Black cherry eyes following, tracking. The future could be now. James/Alice. O/S.


**Written for the lovely BelieveItOrNot. :)**

* * *

Tugging the sleeves of his coat down to cover his wrists, James cast a glance around the small courtyard. The fedora perched on his head was tilted just so, shadowing his pale face and black cherry eyes. A red maple tree towered over him, the sunlight filtering through in fragments, the tiniest slivers catching the diamonds hiding in his skin danced and dazzled for a nanosecond before he shifted away.

Voices filtered from the enclosed yard, most loud and shrill, strange words mixing, nonsensical demands being made, yelling at wraiths unseen by the white-coat-clad nurses assisting them. James counted twenty-seven heartbeats within that fence, all but four of which belonged to women that he could put out of their misery, the unmissed, the abandoned, the crazy. With such a large crowd all gathered for recreation time, it would be easy to slip inside, steal one away and drain her. The nurses might not notice her absence for hours, maybe not until pill time or meal time, or shock therapy time. James would be doing any and all of them a favor; perhaps a slaughter would be best. The asylum would be empty, the world rid of the useless sacks of flesh hidden away inside, and his thirst sated.

But he knew he couldn't go that far, couldn't attract that type of attention. Being so far south had already made him edgy; the heat and constant sunshine were too unfamiliar, yet he had to stay away for as long as he could. Eventually their ire would pass, and he could travel north once again, possibly rejoin them one day, but for now, he was on his own.

A stray white cloud crossed the sky, obscuring the sun, and James took the opportunity before it passed him by. Within the span of a human's blink, he crossed the forty yards in front of him, scaled the fence, and landed silently behind a small outcropping of trees, shading an area for horseshoes. A quick glance revealed the majority of patients—prisoners—were sitting at picnic tables, turning over cards and shouting, probably not even realizing what game they were playing.

He paid them no mind, instead his attention immediately moving to a young girl in his periphery, sitting alone and still on a bench, staring forward vacantly. She was beautiful, he saw in an instant, too beautiful and porcelain to be in a place like this, but her mind was surely damaged beyond repair. Shifting in her seat, she daintily crossed one ankle over the other, her dark eyes still blank. Her hair was short and uneven, with long pieces in the back, like someone put it up in pigtails only to hack it off with a razor. Her ski slope nose sat above thin lips, drawn tightly together as if holding back a scream.

She didn't look crazy, James thought. Not really. Slipping a few feet closer, he looked her over once more, seeing no scars, no scrapes, no bandages, no deformities. Perhaps her illness was of a more unnatural sort. He'd been around this country several times, and knew of women lying with women, men lying with men, the abominable desires repulsive to the general, God-fearing public. James neither feared God nor loved Him, and his life spent as an Other, an abomination as well, taught him a level of acceptance his pitiful human life never showed him.

It took him a mere second to catalogue her, along with the rest of the patients, and he knew she wasn't the one he should take. There was something about her, something that made her too breakable to harm. Before any move could be made, however, he caught the scent of a fellow vampire across the brown, dead grass, a man dressed in white pants and a matching shirt, headed straight toward the isolated girl on the bench. The breeze was against James, keeping his own scent from permeating the air, but he knew the other vampire would detect him within moments. Still unseen, he leapt quickly into the tree above him, fingers and toes barely touching the branches as he ascended higher and higher.

Remaining within hearing range, James listened as the man took a seat on the bench next to the dark-haired girl.

"Mary," he said quietly, leaning closer to the girl. James heard the girl's—Mary's—heart rate pick up, and if James had a heartbeat, his would be finding time with it. "Mary."

Mary turned her head, finally looking at the man. Her eyes were glazed and distant, but slowly she came back to herself, seeming surprised to see the man sitting in front of her. "Jack," she said with a shake of her head.

"Would you like to toss horseshoes?" He inclined his head to the empty sand pit just beyond them, situated almost directly below James. He cursed to himself, stretching even higher in the tree, dangling on branches too thin to truly hold his weight, now bending and swaying with him. Mary nodded, following Jack and taking the horseshoes he offered her.

She went first, her throw falling at least a foot short, but her second try was much closer. With her third throw, she managed to hook the shoe nicely on the spire. Jack went next, his throws much too hard, flying far past the pit, almost comically bad, but Mary didn't laugh or tease him.

As Jack picked up the shoes, with his back to her, he asked a quiet question. "Are you still seeing things?"

Mary was quiet, and James shifted silently trying to see her expression. Her eyes dropped hidden from him, but he saw the way her pointed shoulders lifted to her ears and the defeated demeanor taking her over. "Yes."

The pair was quiet, the only sounds coming from fellow patients screaming and cackling, singing and muttering, and the horseshoes hitting the ring with a clang.

"I try," she said suddenly, her voice quivering and James didn't need to see her face to know her tears; he smelled the salt on the air. "But they won't stop."

Jack stood a few feet away from her, his eyes focused on Mary, a glint there James recognized. This Jack wanted her, wanted this Mary. For what reason, he didn't know. And the James that came there that day for a quick meal before he moved on to another town fled then, and the James that remained was one who felt inexplicably connected to the small girl with the sad, knowing eyes.

Several whistles blew just then, alerting the patients and nurses alike that it was time to go inside. Jack dropped the horseshoes, the weight embedding them into the sand, and motioned for Mary to follow him. She held her arms around her torso, as if protecting herself from something, but James didn't know what. As he craned, trying to watch her go, the branch he held onto snapped and he plummeted quickly—but not too quickly for a vampire, and he caught himself before he hit the ground. As he pulled up to sitting, he saw that Jack was staring back at the tree now, brows pinching together, searching the tree. James was still as only the dead can be, and Jack turned back, unable to make him out through the thick foliage.

With a heavy breath, so human of him, he catapulted himself back across the fence, away from that asylum. He didn't stray far. He had to check on Mary again, he had to ensure that Jack didn't intend to do her harm. He needed to know what she saw behind her irises. He had to see if she saw him.

Only having a few coins in his pocket, James decided to forgo a room that night, instead haunting the empty town after dark, the blazer he had to wear during the day held over his shoulder, his fedora tipped back on his head, bumping against the thin ponytail he wore his hair in. So many things had changed in the century he'd been alive, fashions and inventions and the like, but James could not bear to part with some things, one of which being his Victorian style hair and long sideburns, the other being the velvet waistcoat given him by his father, Since he couldn't wear that in public without becoming a spectacle, he kept it hidden in a small rucksack, wound inside with twine and covered with paper to keep it safe. A hundred years was hard on fabric, but James needed the connection to his former life, even if it was one he had to get away from.

The streets of Biloxi were in good shape, a renaissance of sorts happening with new construction in the area as it recovered from a hurricane some years back. James came upon a large home, a sign out front telling him it was the Dixie White House. Before he could venture further, he heard the distinct sound of a quickly moving vampire coming up behind him. He turned, dropped his coat and rucksack, and moved into a defensive crouch.

Jack came to a stop, dust from the road clouding around his feet. The two eyed one another, both suspicious in their own ways.

"Passin' through?" Jack asked.

James nodded, his still-dark eyes focused on the subtle flexing of Jack's fists.

"You alone?" James nodded once more. "Have a meal and go then; there's some old carpetbaggers in town. This is my territory."

James thought of antagonizing, attacking, starting a game of cat and mouse, making Jack his prey. And maybe a day ago, he would've done just that. But James had found another, larger purpose. James found Mary and was quickly realizing that she was his. Jack needed to die in order to get Mary, but whether now or later, James debated.

"I'll leave." James gestured at the grand home behind him. "Just taking a historical tour."

"There's books for that," Jack pointed out, his body still tense and ready to pounce, but James stepped back, away, his arms loose at his sides, the picture of benign.

"I understand." And James did understand. If he had a job, a town, a whole life he'd established, he wouldn't let any other vampires come in either. By the same token, James wanted to teach this youngster a lesson and take the town just because. The stakes were too high this time, higher than ever before, so James would instead bide his time and back down. He would use the one thing his father always said he lacked: smarts. James was cunning, and a hundred years of running, following, hiding and fighting had taught him enough of strategy.

With a dip of his head, James slid his fedora into place and gathered his things, taking off down the coast, away from Jack. Still, his thoughts were with Mary, the strange, crazy girl that caught his eye and tugged at the place his heart once lie.

Months always went by quickly for James, years passing like hours, moons and suns rising and falling, seasons changing, decades disappearing without a thought. But since seeing Mary on that bench, every second was an eternity.

It had been three days, and James could wait no longer. The wheels and cranks and motors in his brain whirred and turned, gears shifting, plans forming. Fear fed him, clawing at his throat just like his blood thirst, the urgency of the moment ticking like a bomb. He imagined Jack taking off with Mary, the two on the run together, mad human and plain vampire; James envisioned Jack pressing his lips, his teeth, to Mary's throat, taking deep pulls of her blood until she was empty, a limp doll to be discarded; he saw Mary awaking with eyes the color of Hell itself, a flashing vision of death and justice. In each of these, he saw himself left behind, bereft, a nomad still yet with a sense of loss he hadn't known before. He could not let that happen.

So biding his time went out the window, and James left the tiny beachside cottage he'd squatted in and ran back to Biloxi, the coastal wind at his back.

It was another sunny southern day that James had to work around. His fedora covered his face, his coat on his back, and he was lucky he didn't sweat, for the heat was sweltering this day, humid and heavy, a storm coming later. Taking the same path as before, James climbed into his tree, waiting for the patients to come outside. Just as the sun moved directly overhead, out they came, all dressed in formless white gowns, sweat beading on their skin immediately.

Mary moved like a ghost, floating to her bench in the shade, alone. The dark circles James could see even from the near top of the tree marred her pale skin. Jack walked across the thirsty grass, checking on different patients as he did so, guiding a few back to their tables, breaking up a fight a woman was having with herself. His sights were set on Mary, James had no doubt, and as Jack moved toward her, James quickly jumped from the tree and skirted the outside edge of the fence, leaping back over at the far side where part of the yard was hidden from view.

It was there James found his target. An old woman, face lined, sagging jowls, stood alone. She was mute, heavy set and clumsy, and she didn't stand a chance against James.

His Coca-Cola eyes stared into hers, watching the widening of her pupils, hearing the sudden pump-pump-pump of her blood through her veins. He hadn't fed in over a week, but he wouldn't sabotage his plan by giving in now. With a flick of his wrist, a mere twitch of his fingers against her side, her hip slid out of place with a pop. Another twist and her leg cracked. Her mouth fell open in a silent scream, eyes rolling back into her head with her pain. Glancing once around the corner, he tossed her like the bag of bones she was and leapt back over the fence.

When James climbed back into his tree, unnoticed by Jack, a shout rang out, a series of whistles blown, letting the nurses know of an emergency. Jack left his place by Mary's side and ran across the yard at a quick human pace. James dropped to the ground with ease and slid into the seat Jack just vacated.

Mary's head turned slowly, her brown eyes flickering back and forth over his. Her gaze shifted down to his shoulder.

"I thought you'd be in green," she said quietly. There was no surprise in her expression, no confusion in her voice. James found himself speechless, not sure what to say to the young woman sitting in front of him, the one who'd occupied his every thought, the one who wormed her way under his impenetrable skin. "But the Reaper wears tweed."

"Mary?" he finally forced out, brought up short by her strange statement.

"Alice." His head tilted, thoughts scattering to possible diagnoses, multiple personalities, hallucinations, but then she spoke again. "Mary Alice Brandon is my name. But Momma called me Alice."

"Alice," he said, tipping his hat to her in greeting. "I'm James."

"Death has a name." With a shake of his head, James looked across the yard, seeing the other patients crowded around the broken woman, Jack obscured by their bodies.

"Will you come with me?" He stood, holding out a hand. She took it, slowly rising to her feet.

"Cold." Her eyes went blank, distant, two black holes and James was frozen in time, everything shrinking to this little fae creature, a woman-child so tiny but with rounded breasts he now saw through her thin gown. She came back to him then, her face expressionless. "There's no other choice."

Helping her into his tree, her gown blew open, and James saw that they'd kept her bare underneath, and he cursed to himself. She had no dignity left at all. He quickly unrolled his velvet waistcoat from his rucksack, the fabric wrinkled and musty, and pulled her arms through the sleeves. It dwarfed her, making her look even more like a child, and James, though changed when just a man of twenty, was still a man and felt guilt rattle inside of him.

They had to hurry; a look over his shoulder revealed that Jack was carrying the old woman back inside, but he would discover what James had taken soon enough. With Alice in his arms, James jumped from the tree, landing deftly on his toes, and ran with her, faster than he'd run since he was first created. A strange charge hummed between James and Alice, though if she felt it she didn't let on, and James knew once and for all she was meant for him. He remembered Vikram and Sasha, the way they were puzzle pieces, soul mates or blood mates or kindred spirits, whatever they could be called, and James almost faltered in his sprint as he realized just _who_ he had in his arms.

Alice was compliant, limp, head on James's shoulder but arms held in her lap. When he'd traveled a hundred miles he finally slowed, mentally berating himself when he realized she was drenched in sweat from the velvet. They were still in Mississippi but away from the coast, and James was able to locate an abandoned hunting cabin easily, wrenching the soaked fabric away from her skin. The gown was completely see-through now, and James averted his eyes, trying his best to be a gentleman. Alice immediately walked over to a cot in the corner and sat down on it, looking like she'd been there before.

She closed her eyes and sat still, waiting but for what James wasn't sure yet. The cupboards were all empty and James made a mental list of the things he would steal for Alice; she needed clothes and food and water. He studied her face while she couldn't see him, seeing the tiniest hint of wrinkles in the corner of her eyes, noticing the swell of her hips out from her tiny waist.

"How old are you, Alice?"

She opened her eyes slowly, staring at him like she'd asked her own question. "Nearly twenty-one."

"Why were you there?"

"I have visions. The future."

James wanted to scoff but it died in his throat. He remembered the familiar way she looked at him, the way she knew he was coming somehow. "Did you see me?"

She nodded.

"Did you see … us together?"

Another long stare unnerved him and he shifted his weight, a human trait he'd long since abandoned coming back to him. She shook her head. He felt his heart drop, or maybe just his stomach, but the despair that grabbed hold of him just then was a rope to his throat.

"I die." Her gaze was steady, her voice firm. "I die today."

James grew still. Surely he hadn't gone through all that just to kill her? To lose her when he'd only just gotten her? "No," he argued.

"There's nothing else." She lay back on the bed, folding her hands on her stomach. "I'm ready."

A single tear ran from the corner of her eye. James hadn't moved, hadn't blinked, hadn't taken an unneeded breath.

"I'm not afraid."

And she wasn't afraid. Her heartbeat was steady and slow. Her breath was deep and even. Did he dare believe her? Did he give in, accepting her vision and letting nature take its course? Venom coated his teeth, the whisper of a thought of feeding starting a desperate cyclone inside of him, a monster ready to get out. The grief of it all was pulling at his muscles, at his bones, at his burnt-to-a-crisp nerves, and he fell to his knees at her side, her pulse yelling at him from her pale throat. So beautiful. She was his, he knew, but he didn't know in what way.

He would have her inside of him, he told himself. It's better this way, he thought. He would end her dreadful human life and give her peace.

As his lips pressed to her skin, she trembled. When his teeth sunk into her, blood spilling down his chin and back into her hair, she let out a single gasp. His hand clutched at her stomach, at her hip, holding her there, feeling her still-damp gown beneath his fingertips, the ribs of her too skinny torso, and it was heaven on earth. He gulped hungrily, tongue flicking out to catch the excess, and felt the tightening in his groin, the bliss of it all taking over.

A flash of light accompanied by a loud crash of thunder grabbed his attention, shaking the small cabin, a downpour suddenly falling, and the poorly thatched roof over their heads did little to protect them. Looking down at his prey, his Alice, he saw a grimace on her face, a pitiful cry coming from her lips. She was alive still, though her blood still burned on his skin, on his tongue, and his venom was already working through her veins. James took that moment to make a decision—he could keep going, pull every drop out of her and give her a proper burial—or he could stop and let her transition, let her be with him forever. For eternity. The weight of that choice sat on his shoulders, but he knew the pull in his gut to her, like magnets, was real, was an eternal one.

He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back on his haunches. Rain fell over him, soaking his clothes, washing the spilled blood from Alice's skin as she began to jerk and spasm, as howls came from her throat. He hoped she could forgive him.

Unable to leave her, James was forced to watch as she clawed the thin gown on her body to shreds, baring herself completely before him, her secret places calling to him even as she writhed in pain, and he was disgusted with himself. Nothing he did brought her comfort and he eventually sat just outside on the rickety porch and let her suffer alone.

On the third day, she grew quiet, her limbs lying peacefully on the cot. Standing over her, he pulled his velvet waistcoat up over her breasts, and watched her. When her eyelids flew open, he thought her transition was nearly complete, but her heart was still warring with the venom within her, the battle a loud drumbeat in his ears. Her mouth dropped open, a look of pure pain and fear on her face.

"No, no," she said, her head shaking back and forth. "Airplane. Tornado. Washington. He can't. He can't. The rock, stay home, triumph, dodge it, Edward, have mercy …"

On she went, a litany of words, none linking, none making sense, and for two hours James stood over her, horrified, watching her eyes sink into her skull as she saw things he couldn't see, said names he didn't know, her heart close to failing. When the words came faster, muddled together, a language of her own creation, James dropped to his knees once again, asking anyone who was listening for forgiveness. He'd taken a crazy human and turned her, trapping her in her demented mind for eternity, and he realized that whether he killed her three days ago or today, she was right either way. She knew she'd never make it through, never have another life. "There's nothing else," she'd told him. His loneliness led him down this path, false hope rooted in his heart, and now he had to kill her anyway.

Sadness rose up around him, drowning him, an ache he'd never felt before eating at his bones, making him feel the hundred-plus years he truly was. Her heart sped, faster than humanly possible, and he knew it was only minutes away. He had to do it before she woke, before her newborn strength and ruined mind made her into the most horrible of monsters.

So focused he was on Alice, on grabbing her head at the right place to easily pull it from the rest of her body, he didn't hear the other vampire approaching the house until Jack was right on him, yanking him back and tossing him across the room. Jack's eyes stayed on Alice as her voice grew louder, her eyes impossibly bigger, and James had just enough time to throw Jack through a window in the tiny kitchen.

Outside they wrestled and rolled, snapping their sharp teeth at the other's throat, relentlessly pummeling the other, taking down trees as they went. Like a tank through the forest, the destruction they left in their wake was impressive, inhumane. Hysteria was quickly building within James, the realization that Alice was waking, probably at that very moment, alone and mad, and he knew he must end the fight before she got away. Jack was strong, but not as strong as James, and not nearly as quick. When Jack left himself vulnerable, only for a split second, James struck, wrenching both arms from Jack's body and tossing them in different directions. Cracking his knees and ripping his shins away, Jack was left unable to move, but James took no chances; he trapped Jack under a large tree trunk, but left him alive.

"Someone could find me," Jack said through gritted teeth. "A human."

James said nothing, did nothing but walked away, then ran, surprised at the distance he and Jack had gone in their fight. Drawing closer to the cabin, anxiety was licking at his heels, and before it was in sight, James already knew she was gone. No sound came from within, and when he looked inside, she was gone, as well as his velvet coat, no trace of her. James took a deep breath, using his instincts, his ability, to find her. Her smell was specific, the taste of her blood in his memory, and he locked onto her trail.

* * *

"It's time," Alice said to herself, tugging her jacket tighter around her, touching the gold buttons lightly as she walked.

A crack sounded from inside the stadium, loud cheers rising from the crowd.

* * *

Forty years was a long time to chase someone. James had gathered information over the years, enough to settle his mind when he decided to give up, but it never soothed the pain that sat inside his chest like a boulder. He knew that Alice had stayed under the radar, surprising for a rogue newborn, and a lunatic at that, as the Volturi never came knocking. He also surmised that her "psychic ability" allowed her to evade him time and time again, her gift ultimately superior to his.

The absence of his mate made him meaner, more vicious, less forgiving. He stopped killing discriminately, instead taking whomever whenever he wanted. He screwed around when he could, sometimes playing with his meals, trying his best to wipe his perfect vampire memory clean, but failed. He never went south again. He stayed away from asylums. And he stopped looking for her.

But one night, when James found himself in Chicago, and he let himself think of her, he felt her there—in that city, mere miles from him. The urgency that hit him then almost bowled him over, and he knew that despite what he'd tried to convince himself of, he still needed her. She was still his. He moved as quickly as he could, but so many human eyes were open around him, too many witnesses, so it felt like an eternity. Panicked fear pounded in his head as he got closer to her, expecting her to flee at any moment, to see him coming. But she didn't move.

When he came to a baseball stadium, illuminated by dozens of floodlights, fans pouring out after the game, he was frozen. She was there, so close to him, but he couldn't move forward anymore. Knowing she was that close, that she'd run from him for so long but he could now find her, hold her, kiss her, throttle her … it was too much. He felt her getting closer. Like a radar, something inside of him, almost feeling like his long-dead heart, beeped and beat in tandem with her ever approaching form.

Then she was there. Yards away, but with his more-than-perfect vision he could see her like she stood right in front of him. Her face was the same except even more beautiful, her hair even shorter but stylish, and her eyes, they were the color of honey, so different from his black cherry ones. She touched the front of her jacket as she stepped closer, and he recognized the green velvet at once. Now cropped and tailored to fit her, his brain nearly stopped working at the incongruence. He couldn't reconcile this woman—his mate—wearing his jacket, waiting for him here, with the same deranged vampire who fled from him so long ago.

She looked so normal, so the same, yet changed. When they finally stood only inches apart, her head tilted to look up at him, he felt that hum between them again, like electricity, and he was speechless.

Her pale hand rose to touch his face, stroking across the smooth skin of his cheek, pushing his long hair behind his ear, her fingertip tracing down the side of his neck, grazing the color of his military style jacket. "Green," she said, her tawny eyes fixing on his red ones. "I always saw you in green."

A smile then spread across her face, like a rainbow breaking out amongst the clouds, and he fought to keep his arms at his sides instead of wrapping them around her. This woman hurt him so, and he wasn't about to forget it all.

"You ran. Hid from me."

Staring at him, deep into his eyes, seeing things he'd never shown another, she slowly nodded. "It was dark for so long. I didn't even know who I was when I woke. But I saw you." Her fingers gently tapped her temple.

There was anger mixed with joy and James didn't know which to let out. "If you'd waited for me …" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"Once I knew where I was going, I stopped running. I prayed you were still following." He saw the truth in her eyes, knew that she meant it. Unable to resist, he let his hand rest on her shoulder before slipping to her waist, pulling her into his chest.

"I'm not the same man I was when I changed you," he told her, his voice low, almost wishing she couldn't hear. Her arms wrapped around him, holding herself to him as tightly as she could.

"I know. I saw you." She pulled back, looking up at him. "I see you. I see _you_."

A smile formed on his face, unfamiliar but not unwelcome. Warmth he hadn't felt in decades washed over him as he held onto her, breathed in her scent, felt their bond pulsing between them. "I see you, too."


End file.
